Friday 28 April 2017

Orante

Last Monday was a holiday-for St George's Day (which was actually Sunday but we had a day off in lieu)
It was a beautiful morning so we did a little excursion to Orante on the old road to Sabiñánigo.
There's a stone church building and a few houses. We were met by a couple of friendly Pyrenean mountain dogs and an elderly chap who escourted us along the track to the chapel of San Benito. It's all a bit mysterious and "New-Age"; apparently it's got "Teluric energy" and has been used at least since the Bronze Age. One part of the chapel wall is reputedly more than a thousand years old. The location is simply spectacular.



There's a little vent in the wall opposite the door which is apparently something like Celtic, to catch the last rays of the setting sun on the Equinox in March; the guide told us that this was very rare because they were usually for the sunrise.  Nice place!
That was April 24th. Warm and sunny. Today is the 28th and I lit the fire in the living room!

Sunday 2 April 2017

Flowers gone crazy

This morning we walked to church through Pignatelli Park in Zaragoza. It's been a horrible windy spring day, but I was very struck by some flowers coming out of the garden of a Modernist building next to the Italian Church.

They look like escapes from a fairy story (I saw Beauty and the Beast last week) According to the park web page 
they are "thornless rose" I looked in Wikipedia and the say :Rosa banksiaecommon names Lady Banks' rose, or just Banks' rose. 
Really pretty!

Teruel exists

The Teruel Exists campaign has been going on for some years now. I've written about it a few times in this blog. Today's entry is because of a protest we saw in the centre of Zaragoza yesterday.




People dressed in 19th century-stylecostumes to protest about a 19th century-style railway service from Zaragoza to Valencia via Teruel, of course.
This is the protesters in Valencia station. Good luck to them!